NED Abstract

Copyright by American Astronomical Society.
Reproduced by permission
2006ApJ...643..680P
Probing the Intergalactic Medium -- Galaxy Connection toward PKS 0405-123.
III. The Galaxy Survey and Correlations with O VI Absorbers
Jason X. Prochaska, Benjamin J. Weiner, Hsiao-Wen Chen, and John S.
Mulchaey
Abstract. We present a galaxy survey of the field surrounding PKS
0405-123 performed with the WFCCD spectrometer at Las Campanas
Observatory. The survey is comprised of two data sets: (1) a greater
than 95% complete survey to R=20 mag of the field centered on PKS
0405-123 with 10' radius (L~0.1L_*_ and radius of 1 Mpc at z=0.1); and
(2) a set of four discontiguous (i.e., nonoverlapping), flanking fields
covering ~1 deg^2^ area with completeness ~90% to R=19.5 mag. With these
data sets, one can examine the local and large-scale galactic
environment of the absorption systems identified toward PKS 0405-123. In
this paper, we focus on the O VI systems analyzed in Paper I. The
results suggest that this gas arises in a diverse set of galactic
environments including the halos of individual galaxies, galaxy groups,
filamentary-like structures, and also regions devoid of luminous
galaxies. In this small sample, there are no obvious trends between
galactic environment and the physical properties of the gas.
Furthermore, we find similar results for a set of absorption systems
with comparable N_HI_ but no detectable metal lines. The observations
indicate that metals are distributed throughout a wide range of
environments in the local universe. Future papers in this series will
address the distribution of galactic environments associated with
metal-line systems and the Ly{alpha} forest based on data for over 10
additional fields. All of the data presented in this paper are made
public at a dedicated web site.
Key words: Galaxies: Quasars: Absorption Lines